Christian preaching online

The internet is a tremendous resource.  You walk away from a Sunday sermon and think you’d like to know more about something.  You want to get more into the Bible.  Or you want to share something encouraging with a friend.  Many of us will turn to our phones and YouTube.  This spiritual hunger is really encouraging and indeed reflects our verse for the year.  And this is technology being used for good.   
 
However I want to give some suggestions, as guidance:

1. I’d suggest not making YouTube your first, or main port of call. 
The reason we often do this is that it’s incredibly quick and within moments we can be hearing from some of the best communicators and experts on the planet.  That’s a gift.
However when we do that we fail to turn to the two main places God would have us go before this -   

Firstly, we should turn to prayer and our Bibles.  Isaiah 8:20 says go “to the law and to the testimony.” That way we’re spending time directly with God, and growing our own understanding.

Secondly, we should turn to our local church (Ephesians 3:10, 4:11-13).  We’re designed to learn together around people who are praying for us and growing in front of us.  YouTube may download information into us, but church is about real discipleship happening within all of us (or it should be).  After sermons we should be thinking together:  "what did that mean?", "what spoke to you", "how does that fit with this other part of the Bible?", "how are we going to apply this?".  We hope homegroups are a good place for this.  But if instead we go to YouTube with those questions we won’t have the opportunity to grow together as a church and will increasingly just be individuals.  It also becomes impossible to be pastored and protected.  Elders are called to “keep watch over all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28) and in particular protect from “false teaching” (Acts 20:30).  That is simply impossible if rather than turning to the church for our main teaching we’re consuming lots of material online.  

 
2. I’d suggest not to let your YouTube feed drive what you watch.  
The algorithms of YouTube are always suggesting things you might like but these are unlikely to be helpful.  That’s because the platform is designed to get you to watch more (to increase its advertising revenue, not in your balanced Christian growth!  Notwithstanding Paul saying, “ avoid foolish controversies” (Titus 3:9) and “whatever is good think on these things” (Philippians 4:8), there will be unasked on my feed, far more videos about some unedifying scandal in American churches, or some doctrinal disagreement between two celebrity pastors, or how such and such is a sign of the end, or how with five steps we can reach a magical spiritual life, or how so and so really “destroyed” Richard Dawkins in debate. 

Balanced, careful, Bible teaching through consecutive chapters of the Bible (like we do in church and God has told us is good for us) are rarely on anyone’s feed.  The problem is that what we consume does shape us.  If politically you are a little right wing or a little left wing but you start getting your politics through YouTube then slowly you’ll be pushed into more extreme views.  The same thing happens with our Christian views.  One solution to this could be to turn off your feed altogether.  Or you might find some good preaching (e.g. John Piper), or evangelism (e.g. Speak Life) and subscribe to these so you have chosen what you watch.  Perhaps a better way is to use something that isn’t YouTube at all.  You might use podcasts, or a trusted streaming site like Clayton TV.  
  
3. Please consider how much screen time you have. 
All the research is that for us and our children too much screen time is unhealthy.  There is an immediate appeal (and dopamine pay-off) but it produces stress, restlessness, short attention spans and it wastes time when we should be doing other things.  Decide how much time you plan to spend listening to Christian preaching or a podcast and stick with that.  

4. Please be discerning.  Don’t just trust what you listen to because thousands of others have liked it or the person is a pastor or has a PhD.  Sit with your Bible open, look up the passages and check that what is said is really what the Bible says.  Check the context.  Ask one of the Elders.  There is a lot of good, but there are a lot of distortions.